Want to avoid Tommy John surgery? Don't throw so hard

Young pitchers of the world, listen up: If you want to avoid the Tommy John epidemic that has plagued Major Leaguers in recent years, dial back your fastball. Do not throw as hard as you can on every pitch.

Do not always pitch with 100% effort. The best professional pitchers pitch with a range of ball velocity, good ball movement, good control, and consistent mechanics among their pitches. The professional pitcher’s objectives are to prevent baserunners and runs, not to light up the radar gun.

Pitchers with the biggest differential between average velocity and maximum velocity include some of the best in the game, like Cy Young Award winners Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Not all of them have achieved so much success, but based on the complete list of professional players to have Tommy John surgery compiled by BaseballHeatMaps.com, only one player on the above list has endured the procedure: Edinson Volquez, back in 2009.

Not every pitcher in our top 15 has entirely avoided injuries. CC Sabathia is currently on the disabled list with a knee issue. Bartolo Colon’s career was sidetracked by shoulder problems before he re-emerged in 2011. Andrew Cashner is recovering from elbow soreness that put him on the shelf earlier this month.

(Getty Images)

But by and large, it’s a healthy group. Verlander, Scherzer, Sabathia and Ian Kennedy have all thrown at least 180 innings in each of the past four seasons. Ubaldo Jimenez has made at least 31 starts every year since 2008. Yu Darvish threw at least 180 innings a season for five straight years in Japan before crossing the Pacific. Chris Tillman, Hector Santiago and Zach McAllister all largely stayed healthy in the minors before reaching the big-leagues in the past few years.

Of course, simply pointing to that list as evidence that pitchers should ease up is too simple. For one thing, the table above is based only on a pitcher’s most frequently used fastball. Some guys, like Cashner and Justin Masterson, throw multiple iterations of the pitch, which register differently on PitchF/X (though both Masterson and Cashner throw their secondary fastballs with big splits, too).

For another, there’s selection bias at play: The list I used includes only starting pitchers who threw more than 1000 of the same type of fastball since the beginning of 2013, meaning everyone on it has been healthy enough in the past two seasons to throw a hefty number of innings.

And without knowing every pitcher’s true top speed, it’s impossible to know if there are any pitchers who regularly throw below their capacity and refuse to dial it up in big spots. Four of the 15 pitchers at the bottom of the list have had Tommy John surgery at some point. But who’s to say Scott Diamond couldn’t rear back for 97 mph on a one-pitch basis?

A look at the pitchers on the list now sidelined by Tommy John surgery adds some context. Jose Fernandez, for example, maintained a hearty 4.5 mph difference between his average fastball and his fastest one but still couldn’t avoid the scalpel.

(Source: Harry Pavlidis, PitchInfo.com)

Is there something magical about a 4.8 mph difference between a pitcher’s average fastball and fastest one that helps him avoid UCL tears? Surely not. Every pitcher is his own unique snowflake, and every elbow can bear a different lode. Plus, some of the game’s most reliable starters — like Felix Hernandez, Cole Hamels, Gio Gonzalez, and Tim Lincecum — land somewhere between the middle and bottom of the original list.

Still, based on the list above and the conclusions reached by Andrews and Feisig, it seems safe to say that throwing at something less than 100-percent effort will help pitchers avoid elbow injuries. But it’s a lot harder to implement that idea — especially at the game’s highest levels, where doing so would in many cases mean adjusting a pitcher’s fundamental approach to his craft.

In other words: Try telling Jose Fernandez or Matt Harvey not to throw so hard when the game’s on the line.

Pitchers at all levels would likely be best served by coaches emphasizing endurance and fluidity over velocity. And with the increased attention dedicated to preventing elbow injuries after the current rash of Tommy John surgeries — plus the deserved credence given to the work of AMSI — it’ll happen. It may just take a while.

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

That man there might not look anyone’s ideal model of a professional athlete. But Colon — at least the current version, after his return to the big leagues in 2011 — serves as a great example for how younger pitchers might approach the game.

Colon’s two-seamer shows one of the biggest velocity differentials in baseball. And he’s capable of even more: Though he doesn’t throw his four-seam fastball as often, the right-hander threw it as hard as 97 mph last season.

Since 2011, Colon has struck out only 6.2 batters per nine innings, below average by the ever-increasing Major League standards. He relies on control, command and movement over pure heat. By infrequently walking batters, he makes the most of the weak contact he induces, rarely needing to whiff his way out of the tough situations prompted by free passes.

Baseball has a funny way of regulating itself over time. The Tommy John epidemic may be grabbing the most headlines, but it’s hardly the only flummoxing baseball trend in recent years. Due to a variety of factors, strikeout totals have also been on the rise across the league.

So maybe that’s how all of this ultimately plays out: Decreased emphasis on high velocities and the growing popularity of aggressive defensive shifting lead teams to acquire and develop pitchers more focused on inducing weak contact and going deep into games than striking everybody out with their hardest stuff.

That’s one guess, at least. And it represents perhaps the best chance we have at an all-Bartolo future.

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Data and research show that throwing max-effort fastballs leads to elbow injuries.

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